fall. To make its culture profitable, it must be raised in the largest
possible quantities that the extent of land will permit. To attempt the
raising of fruit, or of the ornamental woods, is bad economy for the
sugar planter. Most of the fruits, especially the orange, which is the
chief export, ripen in the midst of the sugar season, and no hands can
be spared to attend to them. The sugar planter often buys the fruits he
needs for daily use and for making preserves, from the neighboring
cafetals. The cane ripens but once a year. Between the time when enough
of it is ripe to justify beginning to work the mill, and the time when
the heat and rains spoil its qualities, all the sugar-making of the year
must be done. In Louisiana, this period does not exceed eight weeks. In
Cuba it is full four months. This gives Cuba a great advantage. Yet
these four months are short enough; and during that time, the
steam-engine plies and the furnace fires burn night and day.
Sugar-making brings with it steam, fire, smoke, and a drive of labor,
and admits of and requires the application of science. Managed with
skill and energy, it is extremely productive. Indifferently managed, it
may be a loss. The sugar estate is not valuable, like the coffee estate,
for what the land will produce, aided by ordinary and quiet manual labor
only. Its value is in the skill, and the character of the labor. The
land is there, and the Negroes are there; but the result is loss or
gain, according to the amount of labor that can be obtained, and the
skill with which the manual labor and the mechanical powers are applied.
It is said that at the present time, in the present state of the market,
a well-managed sugar estate yields from fifteen to twenty-five per cent
on the investment. This is true, I am inclined to think, if by the
investment be meant only the land, the machinery, and the slaves. But
the land is not a large element in the investment. The machinery is
costly, yet its value depends on the science applied to its construction
and operation. The chief item in the investment is the slave labor.
Taking all the slaves together, men, women, and children, the young and
the old, the sick and the well, the good and the bad, their market value
averages about $1000 a head. Yet of these, allowing for those too young
or too old, for the sick, and for those who must tend the young, the old
and the sick, and for those whose labor, like that of the cooks, only
sustains the others, not more than one half are able-bodied, productive
laborers. The value of this chief item in the investment depends largely
on moral and intellectual considerations. How unsatisfactory is it,
then, to calculate the profits of the investment, when you leave out of
the calculation the value of the controlling power, the power that
extorts the contributions of labor from the steam and the engine and the
fire, and from the more difficult human will. This is the "plus x" of
the formula, which, unascertained, gives us little light as to the
result.
But, to return to the changes wrought by this substitution of sugar for
coffee. The sugar plantation is no grove, or garden, or orchard. It is
not the home of the pride and affections of the planter's family. It is
not a coveted, indeed, hardly a desirable residence. Such families as
would like to remain on these plantations are driven off for want of
neighboring society. Thus the estates, largely abandoned by the families
of the planters, suffer the evils of absenteeism, while the owners live
in the suburbs of Havana and Matanzas, and in the Fifth Avenue of New
York. The slave system loses its patriarchal character. The master is
not the head of a great family, its judge, its governor, its physician,
its priest and its father, as the fond dream of the advocates of
slavery, and sometimes, doubtless, the reality, made him. Middlemen, in
the shape of administradores, stand between the owner and the slaves.
The slave is little else than an item of labor raised or bought. The
sympathies of common home, common childhood, long and intimate relations
and many kind offices, common attachments to house, to land, to dogs, to
cattle, to trees, to birds--the knowledge of births, sicknesses, and
deaths, and the duties and sympathies of a common religion--all those
things that may ameliorate the legal relations of the master and slave,
and often give to the face of servitude itself precarious but
interesting features of beauty and strength--these they must not look to
have. This change has had some effect already, and will produce much
more, on the social system of Cuba.
There are still plantations on which the families of the wealthy and
educated planters reside. And in some cases the administrador is a
younger member or a relative of the family, holding the same social
position; and the permanent administrador will have his family with him.
Yet, it is enough to say that the same causes which render the ingenio
no longer a desirable residence for the owner make it probable that the
administrador will be either a dependent or an adventurer; a person from
whom the owner will expect a great deal, and the slaves but little, and
from whom none will get all they expect, and perhaps none all they are
entitled to.
In the afternoon we went to the sugar-house, and I was initiated into
the mysteries of the work. There are four agents: steam, fire, cane
juice, and Negroes. The results are sugar and molasses. At this ingenio,
they make only the Muscovado, or brown sugar. The processes are easily
described, but it is difficult to give an idea of the scene. It is one
of condensed and determined labor.
To begin at the beginning, the cane is cut from the fields by companies
of men and women, working together, who use an instrument called a
machete, which is something between a sword and a cleaver. Two blows
with this slash off the long leaves, and a third blow cuts off the
stalk, near to the ground. At this work, the laborers move like reapers,
in even lines, at stated distances. Before them is a field of dense,
high-waving cane; and behind them, strewn wrecks of stalks and leaves.
Near, and in charge of the party, stands a driver, or more
grandiloquently, a contramayoral, with the short, limber plantation
whip, the badge of his office, under his arm.
Ox-carts pass over the field, and are loaded with the cane, which they
carry to the mill. The oxen are worked in the Spanish fashion, the yoke
being strapped upon the head, close to the horns, instead of being hung
round the neck, as with us, and are guided by goads, and by a rope
attached to a ring through the nostrils. At the mill, the cane is tipped
from the carts into large piles, by the side of the platform. From these
piles, it is placed carefully, by hand, lengthwise, in a long trough.
This trough is made of slats, and moved by the power of the endless
chain, connected with the engine. In this trough, it is carried between
heavy, horizontal, cylindrical rollers, where it is crushed, its juice
falling into receivers below, and the crushed cane passing off and
falling into a pile on the other side.
This crushed cane (bagazo), falling from between the rollers, is
gathered into baskets by men and women, who carry it on their heads into
the fields and spread it for drying. There it is watched and tended as
carefully as new-mown grass in haymaking, and raked into cocks or
windrows, on an alarm of rain. When dry, it is placed under sheds for
protection against wet. From the sheds and from the fields, it is loaded
into carts and drawn to the furnace doors, into which it is thrown by
Negroes, who crowd it in by the armful, and rake it about with long
poles. Here it feeds the perpetual fires by which the steam is made, the
machinery moved, and the cane-juice boiled. The care of the bagazo is
an important part of the system; for if that becomes wet and fails, the
fires must stop, or resort be had to wood, which is scarce and
expensive.
Thus, on one side of the rollers is the ceaseless current of fresh,
full, juicy cane-stalks, just cut from the open field; and on the other
side, is the crushed, mangled, juiceless mass, drifting out at the
draught, and fit only to be cast into the oven and burned. This is the
way of the world, as it is the course of art. The cane is made to
destroy itself. The ruined and corrupted furnish the fuel and fan the
flame that lures on and draws in and crushes the fresh and wholesome;
and the operation seems about as mechanical and unceasing in the one
case as in the other.
From the rollers, the juice falls below into a large receiver, from
which it flows into great, open vats, called defecators. These
defecators are heated by the exhaust steam of the engine, led through
them in pipes. All the steam condensed forms water, which is returned
warm into the boiler of the engine. In the defecators, as their name
denotes, the scum of the juice is purged off, so far as heat alone will
do it. From the last defecator, the juice is passed through a trough
into the first caldron. Of the caldrons, there is a series, or, as they
call it, a train, through all which the juice must go. Each caldron is a
large, deep, copper vat, heated very hot, in which the juice seethes and
boils. At each, stands a strong Negro, with long, heavy skimmer in hand,
stirring the juice and skimming off the surface. This scum is collected
and given to the hogs, or thrown upon the muck heap, and is said to be
very fructifying. The juice is ladled from one caldron to the next, as
fast as the office of each is finished. From the last caldron, where its
complete crystallization is effected, it is transferred to coolers,
which are large, shallow pans. When fully cooled, it looks like brown
sugar and molasses mixed. It is then shovelled from the coolers into
hogsheads. These hogsheads have holes bored in their bottoms; and, to
facilitate the drainage, strips of cane are placed in the hogshead, with
their ends in these holes, and the hogs-head is filled. The hogsheads
are set on open frames, under which are copper receivers, on an inclined
plane, to catch and carry off the drippings from the hogsheads. These
drippings are the molasses, which is collected and put into tight casks.
I believe I have given the entire process. When it is remembered that
all this, in every stage, is going on at once, within the limits of the
mill, it may well be supposed to present a busy scene. The smell of
juice and of sugar-vapor, in all its stages, is intense. The Negroes
fatten on it. The clank of the engine, the steady grind of the machines,
and the high, wild cry of the Negroes at the caldrons to the stokers at
the furnace doors, as they chant out their directions or wants--now for
more fire, and now to scatter the fire--which must be heard above the
din, "A-a-b'la! A-a-b'la!" "E-e-cha candela!" "Pu-er-ta!", and the
barbaric African chant and chorus of the gang at work filling the
cane-troughs--all these make the first visit at the sugar-house a
strange experience. But after one or two visits, the monotony is as
tiresome as the first view is exciting. There is, literally, no change
in the work. There are the same noises of the machines, the same cries
from Negroes at the same spots, the same intensely sweet smell, the same
state of the work in all its stages, at whatever hour you visit it,
whether in the morning, or evening, at midnight, or at the dawn of the
day. If you wake up at night, you hear the "A-a-b'la! A-a-b'la!"
"E-e-cha! E-e-cha!" of the caldron-men crying to the stokers, and the
high, monotonous chant of the gangs filling the wagons or the trough, a
short, improvisated stave, and then the chorus--not a tune, like the
song of sailors at the tackle and falls, but a barbaric, tuneless
intonation.
When I went into the sugar-house, I saw a man with an unmistakably New
England face in charge of the engine, with that look of intelligence and
independence so different from the intelligence and independence of all
other persons.
"Is not that a New England man?"
"Yes," said Mr. Chartrand, "he is from Lowell; and the engine was built
in Lowell."
When I found him at leisure, I made myself known to him, and he sat down
on the brickwork of the furnace, and had a good unburdening of talk; for
he had not seen any one from the United States for three months. He
talked, like a true Yankee, of law and politics--the Lowell Bar and Mr.
Butler, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wentworth; of the Boston Bar and Mr. Choate;
of Massachusetts politics and Governor Banks; and of national politics
and the Thirty Millions Bill, and whether it would pass, and what if it
did.
This engineer is one of a numerous class, whom the sugar culture brings
annually to Cuba. They leave home in the autumn, engage themselves for
the sugar season, put the machinery in order, work it for the four or
five months of its operation, clean and put it in order for lying by,
and return to the United States in the spring. They must be machinists,
as well as engineers; for all the repairs and contrivances, so necessary
in a remote place, fall upon them. Their skill is of great value, and
while on the plantation their work is incessant, and they have no
society or recreations whatever. The occupation, however, is healthful,
their position independent, and their pay large. This engineer had been
several years in Cuba, and I found him well informed, and, I think,
impartial and independent. He tells me, which I had also heard in
Havana, that this plantation is a favorable specimen, both for skill and
humanity, and is managed on principles of science and justice, and
yields a large return. On many plantations--on most, I suspect, from all
I can learn--the Negroes, during the sugar season, are allowed but four
hours sleep in the twenty-four, with one for dinner, and a half hour for
breakfast, the night being divided into three watches, of four hours
each, the laborers taking their turns. On this plantation, the laborers
are in two watches, and divide the night equally between them, which
gives them six hours for sleep. In the day, they have half an hour for
breakfast and one hour for dinner. Here, too, the very young and the
very old are excused from the sugar-house, and the nursing mothers have
lighter duties and frequent intervals of rest. The women worked at
cutting the cane, feeding the mill, carrying the bagazo in baskets,
spreading and drying it, and filling the wagons; but not in the
sugar-house itself, or at the furnace doors. I saw that no boys or girls
were in the mill--none but full-grown persons. The very small children
do absolutely nothing all day, and the older children tend the cattle
and run errands. And the engineer tells me that in the long run this
liberal system of treatment, as to hours and duties, yields a better
return than a more stringent rule.
He thinks the crop this year, which has been a favorable one, will
yield, in well-managed plantations a net interest of from fifteen to
twenty-five per cent on the investment; making no allowance, of course,
for the time and skill of the master. This will be a clear return to
planters like Mr. Chartrand, who do not eat up their profits by interest
on advances, and have no mortgages, and require no advances from the
merchants.
But the risks of the investment are great. The cane-fields are liable to
fires, and these spread with great rapidity, and are difficult to
extinguish. Last year Mr. Chartrand lost $7,000 in a few hours by fire.
In the cholera season he lost $12,000 in a few days by deaths among the
Negroes.
According to the usual mode of calculation, I suppose the value of the
investment of Mr. Chartrand to be between $125,000 and $150,000. On
well-managed estates of this size, the expenses should not exceed
$10,000. The gross receipts, in sugar and molasses, at a fair rate of
the markets, cannot average less than between $35,000 and $40,000. This
should leave a profit of between eighteen and twenty-two per cent.
Still, the worth of an estimate depends on the principle on which the
capital is appraised. The number of acres laid down to cane, on this
plantation, is about three hundred. The whole number of Negroes is one
hundred, and of these not more than half, at any time, are capable of
efficient labor; and there are twenty-two children below the age of five
years, out of a total of one hundred Negroes.
Beside the engineer, some large plantations have one or more white
assistants; but here an intelligent Negro has been taught enough to take
charge of the engine when the engineer is off duty. This is the highest
post a Negro can reach in the mill, and this Negro was mightily pleased
when I addressed him as maquinista. There are, also, two or three white
men employed, during the season, as sugar masters. Their post is beside
the caldrons and defecators, where they are to watch the work in all its
stages, regulate the heat and the time for each removal, and oversee the
men. These, with the engineer, make the force of white men who are
employed for the season.
The regular and permanent officers of a plantation are the mayoral and
mayordomo. The mayoral is, under the master or his administrador, the
chief mate or first lieutenant of the ship. He has the general oversight
of the Negroes, at their work or in their houses, and has the duty of
exacting labor and enforcing discipline. Much depends on his character,
as to the comfort of master and slaves. If he is faithful and just,
there may be ease and comfort; but if he is not, the slaves are never
sure of justice, and the master is sure of nothing. The mayoral comes,
of necessity, from the middle class of whites, and is usually a native
Cuban, and it is not often that a satisfactory one can be found or kept.
The day before I arrived, in the height of the season, Mr. Chartrand had
been obliged to dismiss his mayoral, on account of his conduct to the
women, which was producing the worst results with them and with the men;
and not long before, one was dismissed for conniving with the Negroes in
a wholesale system of theft, of which he got the lion's share.
The mayordomo is the purser, and has the immediate charge of the stores,
produce, materials for labor, and provisions for consumption, and keeps
the accounts. On well regulated plantations, he is charged with all the
articles of use or consumption, and with the products as soon as they
are in condition to be numbered, weighed, or counted, and renders his
accounts of what is consumed or destroyed, and of the produce sent away.
There is also a boyero, who is the herdsman, and has charge of all the
cattle. He is sometimes a Negro.
Under the mayoral, are a number of contramayorales, who are the
boatswain's mates of the ship, and correspond to the "drivers" of our
southern plantations. One of them goes with every gang when set to work,
whether in the field or elsewhere, and whether men or women, and watches
and directs them, and enforces labor from them. The drivers carry under
the arm, at all times, the short, limber plantation whip, the badge of
their office and their means of compulsion. They are almost always
Negroes; and it is generally thought that Negroes are not more humane in
this office than the low whites. On this plantation, it is three years
since any slave has been whipped; and that punishment is never inflicted
here on a woman. Near the Negro quarters, is a penitentiary, which is of
stone, with three cells for solitary confinement, each dark, but well
ventilated. Confinement in these, on bread and water, is the extreme
punishment that has been found necessary for the last three years. The
Negro fears solitude and darkness, and covets his food, fire, and
companionship.
With all the corps of hired white labor, the master must still be the
real power, and on his character the comfort and success of the
plantation depend. If he has skill as a chemist, a geologist, or a
machinist, it is not lost; but, except as to the engineer, who may
usually be relied upon, the master must be capable of overseeing the
whole economy of the plantation, or all will go wrong. His chief duty is
to oversee the overseers, to watch his officers, the mayoral, the
mayordomo, the boyero, and the sugar masters. These are mere hirelings,
and of a low sort, such as a slave system reduces them to; and if they
are lazy, the work slackens; and if they are ill-natured, somebody
suffers. The mere personal presence of the master operates as a stimulus
to the work. This afternoon young Mr. Chartrand and I took horses and
rode out to the cane-field, where the people were cutting. They had been
at work a half hour. He stopped his horse where they were when we came
to them, and the next half hour, without a word from him, they had made
double the distance of the first. It seems to me that the work of a
plantation is what a clock would be that always required a man's hand
pressing on the main spring. With the slave, the ultimate sanction is
force. The motives of pride, shame, interest, ambition, and affection
may be appealed to, and the minor punishments of degradation in duties,
deprivation of food and sleep, and solitary confinement may be resorted
to; but the whip, which the driver always carries, reminds the slave
that if all else fails, the infliction of painful bodily punishment lies
behind, and will be brought to bear, rather than that the question be
left unsettled. Whether this extreme be reached, and how often it be
reached, depends on the personal qualities of the master. If he is
lacking in self-control, he will fall into violence. If he has not the
faculty of ruling by moral and intellectual power--be he ever so humane,
if he is not firm and intelligent, the bad among the slaves will get the
upper hand; and he will be in danger of trying to recover his position
by force. Such is the reasoning _à priori_.
At six o'clock, the large bell tolls the knell of parting day and the
call to the Oración, which any who are religious enough can say,
wherever they may be, at work or at rest. In the times of more religious
strictness, the bell for the Oración, just at dusk, was the signal for
prayer in every house and field, and even in the street, and for the
benediction from parent to child and master to servant. Now, in the
cities, it tolls unnoticed, and on the plantations, it is treated only
as the signal for leaving off work. The distribution of provisions is
made at the storehouse, by the mayordomo, my host superintending it in
person. The people take according to the number in their families; and
so well acquainted are all with the apportionment, that in only one or
two instances were inquiries necessary. The kitchen fires are lighted in
the quarters, and the evening meal is prepared. I went into the quarters
before they were closed. A high wall surrounds an open square, in which
are the houses of the Negroes. This has one gate, which is locked at
dark; and to leave the quarters after that time is a serious offence.
The huts were plain, but reasonably neat, and comfortable in their
construction and arrangement. In some were fires, round which, even in
this hot weather, the Negroes like to gather. A group of little Negroes
came round the strange gentleman, and the smallest knelt down with
uncovered heads, in a reverent manner, saying, "Buenos días Señor." I
did not understand the purpose of this action, and as there was no one
to explain the usage to me, I did them the injustice to suppose that
they expected money, and distributed some small coins among them. But I
learned afterwards that they were expecting the benediction, the hand on
the head and the "Dios te haga bueno." It was touching to see their
simple, trusting faces turned up to the stranger--countenances not yet
wrought by misfortune, or injury, or crime, into the strong expressions
of mature life. None of these children, even the smallest, was naked, as
one usually sees them in Havana. In one of the huts, a proud mother
showed me her Herculean twin boys, sprawling in sleep on the bed. Before
dark, the gate of the quarters is bolted, and the night is begun. But
the fires of the sugar-house are burning, and half of the working people
are on duty there for their six hours.